Is it safe to say that anyone who thinks Ronnie is innocent just because he is a national hero & pool champion is a frigging idiot? I hope I don't make anyone cry with my rough and salty namecalling, I don't wanna get banned lol =)
(Sorry joey, but it just made me laugh that a tough guy like you is gonna call for a ban hammer over "perverted pigs"... I know such a thing doesn't faze you in the least. I respect you for always keeping an even keel and never resorting to namecalling ...but you gotta be used to seeing minor stuff like that on internet forums. Somehow I think if it a friend of yours were making a similar statement about, say... marissa, you wouldn't be calling for capital punishment)
On the subject of marissa... I missed the super offensive kissing dudes avatar, but I think anyone who gets on the internet has to brace themselves for a helluva lot worse. If you're worried about your kids seeing some 2 inch pic of two dudes necking then you probably need to get them offline entirely until they're ready for tubgirl, goatse and lemonparty too. And if you're worried about it not being safe for work... lol, it's not safe to get caught slacking off reading pool sites when you should be working.
Personally I don't care whether someone wants to screw males or females, but on the other hand I think when you know you may provoke an angry reaction with your avatar and you put it up anyway, you're guilty at least of some form of trolling or attention whoring... Well, that's pretty harsh, it could be she was hoping seeing something like that will remind people about gay/lesbian/whatever issues... maybe even change how they look at it and broaden their horizons. Or maybe she mistook this for a young, liberal and artsy forum where such an avatar is seen as edgy or even classy (lol?!). Either way seems pretty naive. Anyway I'm glad she realized this isn't the place to push the issue and changed it, and kudos to everyone who acknowledges that it's just as trashy to have tasteless avatars with females.
On the subject of "not the place to push issues", I wish people would try a little harder not to drag god, the bible, homosexuality, or other hot topics into a thread that isn't built for such arguments. I'm not saying "don't talk about those things", just don't derail threads with touchy subjects because they're guaranteed to start long flame wars and completely ruin the discussion.
Oh, what the hell were we discussing? Oh, right, alcano. I dunno if he's guilty or not, but so far I don't see any earthshattering evidence in either direction. Certainly random stories like "I know this person and they were a victim of golddigging" or "I know this person and they were a victim of rape" doesn't really prove or disprove anything. It could be the work of a gold digger, but I don't see anything heavily pointing in that direction. I don't see any punitive damages or lawsuit money yet. I also think that a typical girl absolutely does NOT want to be known as someone who was (more or less) raped, not even for a (not-so-great) chance at a lot of money... though possibly an impressionable 14 year old might be steered into such a scheme by a parent.
I don't see it as especially meaningful that the charges were changed and that the girl wasn't penetrated. A person doesn't have to have a broken hymen to have been molested. I don't see the timing as meaningful either. Lots of women have trouble coming forward about this stuff and don't report it until later. Maybe they waited until alcano's rich and famous because it really bothers them that they're seeing someone they know is a dirtbag suddenly getting all this love and respect from the media. The fact that he's on top of the world doesn't make him less likely to molest someone. By that logic, if someone gets very down and broke they'd more likely to molest?! As ccn7 pointed out, lots of people seem to have a nasty urge to touch kids. Hell, it's arguable people are MORE likely to try stuff they know is immoral and illegal when they're riding high and have lots of wealth... because they may feel a little more invincible. See OJ, jacko, kobe, and a bunch of NFL guys.
I realize I sound like I've already condemned the guy, and maybe that's just as bad as automatically assuming he's innocent just cuz he runs racks in his sleep. But I think ccn had the right of it... false accusations are probably rare, or at least less likely than the alternative. If anyone's really convinced it's golddigging based on just what you've read, ask yourself how many times something like this has happened to efren reyes or any other filipino champion?